Browsing by Subject "career goal"

Aims. The aim of this thesis was to examine and describe from the perspective of the lifespan model of motivation how Finnish late adolescents navigate the post-high school transition, that is, how they channel, choose, and compensate career goals. The theorydriven, exploratory hypotheses assumed that the current situation in education or employment is associated with the career goal content (H1); the underlying meaning behind the career goal is associated with the career goals young people prioritise (H2); current situation in education or employment is associated with the change in career goals (H3); changes in career goals are associated with the importance of the career goal (H4). The results confirmed hypotheses H1, H2, and H3. Methods. The data were collected in 2019 using an intensive longitudinal setting. The weekly questionnaire was sent to sixty young Finns for thirty-nine consecutive weeks. At the start of the study, participants were 18 or 19 years of age. The qualitative data were analysed by means of content analysis and aggregated into key domains and core themes. The associations between categorical variables were examined using crosstabulation and χ2 test of independence. The associations between variables were also displayed graphically. Results and conclusions. Our findings were in line with previous literature revealing that the participants’ situation in education or employment was associated with the career goals they engage with. Studying was associated with prioritising goals concerning education, for example, high school graduation or university admission. In turn, working predicted goals concerning work or finances. Finnish late adolescents value higher education, and that was reflected in the results, as the career goals concerning university admission were prioritised among participants in almost every group. In general, our results reflected what are the expectations of the Finnish young people, but also what they expect of themselves. Based on the results, it seems that students state different reasons for career goal change than those who were working or neither working nor studying.